Okay... fine I'll retract that. But he remains where he is on my list.

I've also heard the comparison to Edward Nigma from Batman Forever.

Also this is relevant: "For comparison, the Mandarin has appeared in 181 Marvel comics since his creation (Source: Marvel Wikia). Killian has appeared in ... 1 page of 1 issue. Killian's personality was stolen from the Mandarin."

Just disappointing to many.

That's the whole point.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Killian *is* The Mandarin. Killian is absolutely nothing like his comic-book counterpart, of course, because his comic-book counterpart was nothing but a dead body who spurred the murder mystery that forms the crux of Ellis' Extremis. So what Black did instead was to create a Mandarin that could actually *work* in the MCU and not be ridiculed by critics and general audiences as Fu Manchu with a brace of magic rings. We've seen comic-book Mandarin onscreen many times before: Lo Pan from Big Trouble In Little China; Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon; Shiwan Khan in The Shadow; hell, Fu Manchu himself. And a whole host of kung fu movies and anime. We can debate shoulda-coulda-woulda all night long, but it's highly doubtful any version of those characters would have fit into the Iron Man cinematic universe without cries of the series "jumping the shark." What we got was an MCU Mandarin who was a brilliant genius, who had an obsessive and long-seated hatred of the hero, whose machinations and manipulations were fiendishly clever and deceptive, whose persona conveyed wealth and genius and sex appeal and power, and whose superpowers were more than a match for the hero.

Aldrich Killian, the real Mandarin, is the villain Tony Stark has always deserved.

Tough choice for me, so I won't vote for now. It's either Stane or Killian.

Once it was revealed that Stane was THE villain of the first Iron Man movie, he was menacing, smarmy, and pretty subtle ... Until the final battle. The final battle of the first movie was good, but I felt it paled in comparison to the rest of the film, and I felt when Bridges was in full-on "comic book villain mode," he fell kind of flat. He wasn't terrible, don't get me wrong (especially because Bridges' performance for the rest of the movie is so great), but I was definitely more intimidated by Stane than I was of Iron Monger.

Killian kind of had the opposite effect for me. He was pretty good for most of the movie, until the "twist" happened. After that point, the payoff for Killian's character was fantastic, in my opinion. He character ended really strong, and the third act of Iron Man 3 was much better than the first film's.

I think I've decided my favorite villain is the fake Mandarin we saw in the trailers. I still find myself quoting him at odd times throughout the day.

"Do you want an empty life or a meaningful death?"

In the trailers, he literally had the best lines of any Iron Man film, he was the most intriguing character (including heroes) and I really wanted to see him on the big screen. Even the first half of the film where he starred in the ten rings videos were extremely cool.

"Some people call me a terrorist. I consider myself a teacher..."

So there. My favorite villain in an Iron Man film wasn't actually in an Iron Man film.

Stane does it for me mainly because of Jeff Bridges brilliant portrayal. The scene when he sends his gunman in to kill Raza after he was done using him was just coldblooded. Tony trusted him and it was his betrayal that makes it all so memorable. Nobody else stacked up to Stane.